Reflections
by ovp
Summary: 'What an utter failure of an honorable man you turned out to be.' Robin stares paralyzed at his talking reflection in the Snow Queen's glass. Belle had warned them, both he and Will, not to glance in the mirror not to allow it to take hold of their insecurities but it appeared he hadn't looked away quite fast enough.


_Regardless of one's feelings towards the outlaw queen kiss (personally yay!) Robin has, if only briefly, acknowledged that him acting on his emotions towards Regina is something he at least partially feels is dishonorable (where it falls on his spectrum is hard to say) and that is something he's going to have to face. So my question is what happens when he and Will supposedly go after the mirror? The mirror is designed to prey on your insecurities to take every single nasty thought and fear you try to hide or forget and make them apparent to you. If Robin looks in the mirror it's going to most likely torture him about his decision to disregard his honor and I think that's where we're really going to see whether Robin can truly live with his choice; that's where my curiosity lies because who knows how he'll react once he comes face to face with his choice. Would he leave Regina again if the mirror makes him believe it was the wrong choice?_

_And now given all that I wrote a one shot about just that, and it actually has some happy moments…(Honestly Will and Robin are just too cute.)_

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><p><strong>Reflections<strong>

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><p><em>What an utter failure of an honorable man you turned out to be.<em> Robin stares paralyzed at his **talking** reflection in the Snow Queen's glass. Belle had warned them, both he and Will, not to glance in the mirror not to allow it to take hold of their insecurities but it appeared he hadn't looked away quite fast enough.

"You're wrong."

_Am I?_ The expression sneers. _Pray tell me how you fucked the Queen in her vault while your wife lies dying. Honor what is it to you when any warm body can sate your desires. _

"It isn't like that! I love Regina!"

_Love? The Evil Queen? How do you even know any of this is real? She's a witch, an evil, manipulative bitch -_ Robin wasn't sure if the mirror was choosing those similar sounding words for his benefit or to truly torture him _- has been one all her life; people don't change._

"I did."

_Ah yes, for honor. You changed from a two-bit thief into the kind of man who becomes a legend, a hero. Oh honor brought you there it brought you your wife, the mother of your child, the respect of your men, the love of your life but now, and his expression grins horribly, now you're nothing but the two-bit thief you were. Who needs to save Marian? She was just a roadblock in your way; an obstacle to your true love._

"I will save Marian. Regina and I will save her…" He tries and fails to stop his voice from cracking.

_She's a Queen, Robin, a lady of noble birth and lineage, do you think in the Enchanted Forest she'd honestly ever choose you? Choose to sleep on the ground? Live in a tent? Give up her pretty jewels for a life of near poverty?_

Memories from the last year invade his mind unbidden. Every barb and insult, every push against his subtle advances to be her friend. She must have known about the tattoo, he thinks looking back, he rolled up his sleeves often enough when in the castle. Suddenly her pettiness during that year seems not be the endearing act of petulant child trying to hide a crush but the anger of a woman dissatisfied with her apparent partner. In Storybrooke he and Regina were more or less equals without class to divide them, she'd said so herself that he was much more likeable here, but back in the Enchanted Forest the thought of him and her must have been repugnant. The archer vividly shakes his head trying to remove those dangerous thoughts, Belle warned him. She warned him not to listen. The mirror was wrong.

"Regina loves me for who I am!"

_Has she told you that?_ **No.** He shivers despite his blood running hotter and hotter, he's told her of his affections and has not yet received a response. _Did she not love you for the honorable thief __**you were**__? Your honor is what made you lovely in her eyes and now you've gone and given it up. What value are you to her now? Why would she love you? A two-bit con without his honor?_ His reflection turns contemplative. But perhaps you two are perfect for each other. A monster who turns his back on his marriage vows and is selfish enough to leave his wife to freeze, the woman who made him honorable, for the monster who killed her and countless others.

"She never killed Marian. Marian is here now!"

_But she would have. Your wife's fate was to die by Regina's hands. Do you think Regina has actually been trying to help? You have no proof that she's even tried to help Marian - but she got you. She's got you wrapped around her little finger. She waited patiently until you came crawling back to her gasping; until you came willingly abandoning the thing that defined you. She made you into this monster; she made you lose your honor. She has to pay._

"No!"

_She has to pay! You're a monster!_

"No," he weakly protests.

_She has to pay! She doesn't deserve your love; she won't accept it. You're nothing._ His hand unconsciously drops to his belt, to the dagger fastened there, as every spiteful comment and cruel word of the mirror makes things more and more clear. The hidden bits of insecurity he'd locked away becoming more and more consuming.

_She's a monster!_

"Bloody hell, mate!" Cries Will standing directly in front of the mirror, blocking Robin's view, and cutting of his reflection's malicious words. "What part of don't look in the mirror did you not bloody understand?"

"She has to pay!" It's at this point that Will appears to finally spot the knife clasped in Robin's white knuckled hands although he does not seem perturbed by its appearance.

"Nobody's gotta pay, Robin. The mirror preys on yer insecurities that doesn't make it right. Yer too honorable to let those impulses win. " That does it. **Honor.** The dagger clatters to the floor at his feet before he follows it. Dropping to his knees and taking deep, terrified breaths. The dark, so very dark, thoughts that had consumed his mind ebbing away.

He's struggled so badly with his code. Tried so hard to do right by Marian but...he loves Regina. He can't live without her. And maybe yesterday when he had cornered her in her vault and let those feelings lead him into the throes of passion he had betrayed Marian but no act of betrayal had never felt so right. He does in some ways regret not waiting until his wife was awake again, awake and able to be part of the conversation, but Regina was moving on without him. She was resigning herself and the jealous, possessive part of him, the large part of him that wanted Regina so badly, was quick to remind him that maybe for once, he should steal something for himself. Steal what he coveted above all else. His honor when juxtaposed against his heart had brought him misery but last night when Regina was tucked against him it was the happiest he had felt in ages and how could that be wrong?

"I slept with Regina." Will whistles lowly as he searches for something to cover the mirror with behind where Robin kneels. "Didn't you hear me?"

"Aye."

"Well?" He wonders if he's expected to be scolded like a naughty child. He can imagine what some of his men would say if he made this admission to them but Will doesn't seemed phased by the leader of the Merry Men supposed infidelity.

"Have to say I'm impressed," says Will, "you getting all hot and bothered and giving up your honor. Was ruining your life worth it?"

Robin blinks because it doesn't feel like he's ruined his life. Made it more complicated - not that it wasn't already complicated enough - but it doesn't seem ruined. He loves Regina and, yes, lust is part of that equation as well, but to live a lie, to deny himself the comfort and security of Regina for one moment longer was not honorable because his heart already knew what it wanted. "I couldn't deny my feelings anymore...I'm not ashamed of that. I wish I could have been able to tell Marian but living a lie for any longer would have just made things worse."

"Well I suppose that's very mature of you." Mutters Will walking towards the mirror a white blanket clutched in his hands. Robin's calmed down somewhat and he studiously avoids looking in the mirror again, but curiously the knave seems barely affected the object's malevolent powers of subterfuge.

"You're a nasty piece of work," he snaps at the object, clearly winning the arguments it's offering as to why Will needs to hurt others, even if the young man, because that's what he is a young man who's seen too much of the world, looks impossibly sad.

It's seconds later and Will has the blanket tied across the surface of the glass, effectively blocking it from view. "Now how do you suppose we're going to get this back to town?" He muses.

"How?" asks Robin.

"How what?" parrots Will not even turning to look at the archer. "I don't know how to bloody get it back to town that's why I'm asking."

"No. How...how did you not let its words affect you?"

"I've dealt with enough magical artifacts to not let 'em get to me no more. Hang around magic long enough and you either go loopy or learn that if you fear it, it wins."

Robin nods slowly standing up. The mirror doesn't look too heavy but it is large and with no way of knowing what exactly will set off the spell of shattered sight they can't risk damaging it.

"We'll have to carry it."

"Bloody hell!" Curses Will snapping his head between Robin and the mirror, "Through the woods? Next time ask your girlfriend for a relocation spell or at least a spell of levitation." Robin's lips curl slightly at the acknowledgment of Regina's place in his life. A place he is surprisingly comfortable with her existing.

"I suppose I owe you an apology."

"For what exactly?" huffs Will retrieving his knife and beginning to saw at the string holding the mirror up. "Because if it's for coercing me into helping you by lording over me my betrayal against the Merry Men be aware that after we take this bloody thing I've made my amends."

"All those years ago I didn't understand...I didn't try to understand that sometimes love outweighs all the consequences of doing wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Going against the code," he corrects.

"The code you created, mind," chuckles Will, "perhaps it just needed amendment, a sub paragraph A." Robin nods holding the mirror steady as Scarlet finally severs the cord in two and they each take a side carrying the mirror out of the Snow Queen's liar.

"You have a story someday I hope you'll tell me Will."

"Nah, nothing to tell. Ain't nothin' glamorous about my sordid tale." Will answer quickly, too quickly, but it isn't Robin's place to pry as they both try to carefully navigate the leaf and root covered ground; not to mention the ice that is everywhere. He still has his reservations about Will Scarlet and the boy is still a bloody pain in his arse but if they're going to be stuck together for the next half hour at least he can have a little bit of fun to try and distract himself from the terrible ideas the mirror planted in his mind - fears that he is still struggling to come to terms with.

"Did I ever tell you how I met Regina?"

"Oh for the love of God just don't start! I don't want to know mate, you hear?"

"She was being carried off by a flying monkey -"

Will groaned. "I swear I'll drop this bloody thing; don't care if it kills us."

"There she was bleeding refusing any sort of help-"


End file.
